For small groups · 10 questions
John 20 Bible study questions
Mary Magdalene finds the empty tomb and meets Jesus. He appears to the disciples behind locked doors, and then to Thomas.
Read the chapter aloud first. Then take the questions in order: what it says, what it means, what to do. About 45 minutes. Skip any question that doesn’t fit your group.
Start here
- What is something you only believed once you saw it?
Look: what does it say?
- What do Mary, Peter and the other disciple each see at the tomb?John 20:1-10
- When does Mary recognize Jesus?John 20:14-16
- What does Thomas say he needs, and what happens a week later?John 20:24-29
Understand: what does it mean?
- Mary knows Jesus when he says her name. What does that tell you about him?John 20:16
- The doors are locked for fear, and Jesus says “Peace be with you.” Why that first?John 20:19-21
- Jesus does not scold Thomas’s doubt. How does he meet it?John 20:27-29
Live it: what will we do?
- What locked door, a fear or a hurt, would you like Jesus to come through?John 20:19
- Where are you like Thomas right now? What would help you?John 20:25
- John says this was written so that you may believe. What has this chapter done for your faith?John 20:30-31
Close in prayer
Pray for peace for anyone behind a locked door, and for anyone who doubts.
John 20
Lumin Translation. It prints after the questions, so the group has the words in front of them.
1 On the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb in the early morning when it was still dark, and she saw the stone lifted away from the tomb.
2 So she came running to Simon Peter and to the other disciple, whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord from the tomb, and we do not know where they have put him!”
3 So Peter and the other disciple set out and went toward the tomb.
4 The two were running side by side, but the other disciple ran ahead, faster than Peter, and arrived at the tomb first.
5 He leaned in and saw the linen strips lying there, yet he did not enter.
6 Simon Peter then arrived, coming after him, and he entered the tomb and saw the linen strips lying there,
7 and the cloth that had been on his head, not lying with the linen strips but rolled up separately in one place.
8 Then the other disciple, the one who had arrived at the tomb first, went in too, and he saw and believed.
9 For up to that time they had not understood the Scripture, that he had to rise from the dead.
10 So the disciples went back home.
11 Mary, though, was standing outside by the tomb, weeping. While she wept, she leaned down to look into the tomb,
12 and she saw two angels dressed in white seated there, one at the head and one at the feet of the place where the body of Jesus had been lying.
13 They asked her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She told them, “Because they have taken my Lord away, and I do not know where they have put him.”
14 After saying this, she turned to look behind her and saw Jesus standing there, though she did not know it was Jesus.
15 Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you searching for?” She thought he was the gardener, so she said to him, “Sir, if you are the one who carried him off, tell me where you put him, and I will take him away myself.”
16 Jesus said to her, “Mary.” Turning toward him, she said in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (meaning Teacher).
17 Jesus said to her, “Stop holding on to me, because I have not yet gone up to the Father. Go to my brothers instead and tell them, ‘I am going up to my Father and your Father, my God and your God.’”
18 Mary Magdalene came to the disciples with the news: “I have seen the Lord!” And she told them what he had said to her.
19 When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, the doors of the place where the disciples were had been locked out of fear of the Jews. Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, “Peace be with you.”
20 Having said this, he showed them his hands and his side, and the disciples rejoiced at seeing the Lord.
21 So Jesus said to them once more, “Peace be with you. Just as the Father has sent me, I also send you.”
22 After saying this, he breathed on them and told them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.
23 If you forgive anyone’s sins, those sins have been forgiven them; if you hold on to anyone’s sins, they have been held on to.”
24 But Thomas, who was called the Twin and was one of the Twelve, was not with them when Jesus came.
25 The other disciples kept telling him, “We have seen the Lord!” But he told them, “Unless I see the imprint of the nails in his hands, and push my finger into the imprint of the nails, and push my hand into his side, there is no way I will believe.”
26 After eight days his disciples were indoors again, with Thomas among them. The doors were locked, but Jesus came and stood in their midst and said, “Peace be with you.”
27 Then he told Thomas, “Bring your finger here and look at my hands. Bring your hand and push it into my side. Do not be without faith; be one who believes.”
28 Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!”
29 Jesus said to him, “Is it because you have seen me that you have believed? Blessed are those who have believed without seeing.”
30 Jesus also did many other signs in front of his disciples that have not been written down in this book.
31 These, however, have been written down so that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that as you believe, you may have life in his name.
Lumin’s own translation, drafted with AI from the Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, checked verse by verse against them, and approved by Lumin. Brackets mark verses not found in the earliest manuscripts.